𝓞𝓷𝓵𝔂 𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓼

✿ Chapter Twenty Six - Preparations

┏━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┓
Samantha
┗━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━┛

It's been two weeks. Two weeks since I told Logan everything about my relationship with Zane. Two weeks since Cole showed me I appeared on the news. Two weeks of looking over my shoulder every time I walked down the street.

Shortly, it's been one week of going to work and then straight home. For Cole it was the same. He didn't even think of going anywhere other than school. We didn't have time to have a talk about it, which made today perfect. I asked my boss for a day off today. It was the Thursday before Easter and I thought it would be wise if I took this day to cook all I had in mind for Easter and clean up the house. I managed to do what I mostly had in mind, but now it was time to enter in Cole's room and take the dirty laundry.

His room was a mess. I was even wondering how he could sleep in the smell of compressed cheese and dirty socks, with the dirty laundry thrown everywhere in the room. I was wondering how his desk chair didn't terrify both boys at night. I took the basket in my arms and started picking up the mess around his room. On his desk I found dirty dishes with rests of food, which made me wonder when the hell he ate up here, cause I never saw him take any food. After cleaning that as well, I decided to arrange his notebooks in his drawers so he had this space free. So he could at least access his computer, cause from what I saw, he barely could swing his mouse to turn it on. Impressive how he filled it all up.

Okay, so I managed to throw the plastic bags, gather all his dirty laundry and finally empty his desk of notebooks and papers. I was just putting the last pile of papers in his drawer, when a paper on the floor caught my eye. It was right behind the desk in the multitude of wires from his computer, console and TV. I left the pile and leaned in to pick it up. It was just a crinkled half of paper. Since I was at it, I could check and see what it was about. I unwrapped it and I saw a date and an hour from the following weeks written, specifying it for a Friday and that it was a shipment. Unfolding it more, I saw information on Cole written at the calculator with his photo. All that information was wrong, including half of his name.

I thought about it for a while, unable to question anything except why Cole had a fake file and a date for a shipment. I had no idea what it was about, but for some reason, my mind wondered to when I overheard the boys talking. I became uneasy at the thought of Cole getting himself into something... so shady, maybe even illegal. At that point I took a reckless decision. Wherever he was going that night, mommy was gonna be right behind. Of course I could confront him about it, but I knew my son. He knew when to tell the truth and when to lie. I had a feeling he would've kept this a secret from me for as long as he could.

After taking a photo of the paper and stocking it in his desk, I took the basket full of laundry and went downstairs. I started cooking, because I had nothing better to do.

The door was slammed and my two boys ran into the kitchen, both with half smiles. Cole hugged me, and then Nathan did. These past two weeks Nathan seemed a bit... delicate with me, too delicate. He apologized more often, he hugged me tighter and he even talked to me more than usual.

"How are you, momma?" That was Cole's classic question, for example.

Not that I had a problem with it, but it felt like he got softer on me. I kinda liked that.

"Good, darling. How are you two? How was your day? You two came a little late. Care to tell me why?" I rose a brow, eyeing them both.

Cole rubbed the back of his neck as Nathan replied without holding back. "We were at football practice. Next week we got a big game coming up."